Quentin's Way

Chapter 2

            "Before I let you all go," Professor Lewis said to us at the end of the class session, "I need to do something. I understand that there are two student athletes in this class. Quentin Williams from the football team and Preston Hendricks from the basketball team. I do not cut athletes slack but I do understand your schedules can get hectic; therefore, I usually arrange pairings so you can keep up with classwork without having to stop by my office all the time. So, are there any volunteers to be paired with either Quentin or Preston?"

            Nearly every girl in the classroom raised their hands; meanwhile, Demi kept his hand down and was focused on whatever he was writing in his notebook. I wanted him to put his hand up so bad but he didn't. He'd only looked at me that one time during the entire hour and fifteen minute class so of course he wasn't going to volunteer to help me with the classwork. Just as I was thinking I'd have to be paired up with some thirsty girl, something unexpected happened.

            "Girls, you can go ahead and put your hands down," said Professor Lewis. "I said I was going to pair the student athletes up someone who can help them keep up with classwork, not so you can have a chance to do other things with them. Since there's two student athletes, I'll choose the two male students who scored the highest on the online assessment you all completed prior to this first day of class." He pulled out his printout of our scores from the online assessment we all took and called out, "Nicholas Reed and Demitri Lattimore. Can you two raise your hands?"

             Demi and the other dude raised their hands and Professor Lewis told them, "Nicholas, I'm pairing you with Preston. Demitri, I'm pairing you with Quentin. And with that, class is over. Congratulations everyone, you survived the first day of Calc 201."

            As everyone began exiting the class, I was completely frozen in my seat. I honestly could not believe what had just happened. Out of pure coincidence, I got paired with Demi. When I noticed Demi walking over to where I was sitting, I became extremely nervous. Before he could even say anything to me, I stood from my seat and told him, "We can switch with the other dudes if you want."

            He giggled and replied, "Quentin, I don't want to switch."

            I waited until all the other students and Professor Lewis was gone before asking him, "You don't want to switch?"

            "No. It'll be just like old times when I tutored you. The only difference is you don't really need a tutor this time around. You wouldn't be a freshman in a second-year math class if you still needed a tutor. Can you believe we're two of only five freshmen in this class?"

            "All the tutoring you gave me paid off. I scored pretty high on my placement test over the summer. One more math class next semester and I'll already be done with my math requirement."

            "Me, too. So, you already have my number and social media info. If you need any help just hit me up."

            "Demi, wait. I uh...I just wanna say I'm sorry."

            "Sorry for what?"

            "That this happened. It really is a coincidence. I had no idea you'd be in this class when I signed up for it."

            "Q, it's really not a problem for me. This really isn't that surprising. We knew we'd run into each other sometimes and there was always the possibility that we'd end up in a class or two together."

            "So, you're not uncomfortable?"

            "Not even a little bit." He gave me a look and then asked, "I wasn't going to say anything, but what's up with the right side of your face? Did that happen during football practice?"